The invention is directed to an assembly of a label and a substrate, and to a method for making it, wherein the label assembly has an oversheet attached peripherally to the substrate so as to define a zone between the oversheet and the substrate. The oversheet can capture an inserted item such as a folded product information sheet, which is intended to be extracted by a consumer who tears away a portion of the oversheet. The oversheet preferably is substantially clear and is attached at perforated edge strips to the substrate. The assembly is useful for providing product information to consumers, for example as an attachment to a product, package, promotional handout, ad in a publication, etc.
Insert-receiving label assemblies can be useful in a number of situations in which a supplemental item needs to be carried on a substrate. The substrate might be a product or product container. The substrate could also be a sheet such as a printed promotional brochure or mailing. The insert might be a small product sample, a supplemental publication or instructional sheet, etc.
Supplemental publications or instructional sheets are particularly useful for distribution with or in connection with regulated products such as medicines, pesticides, potentially poisonous or dangerous substances and the like. These products may have extensive associated warnings, contraindications, instructions for use, instructions for amelioration of accidents, and the like. Even with relatively small print, the printed area that is needed for copies of the instructions, warnings and the like, might take more space than the entire surface area of the product packaging or the product promotional material involved. It is undesirable to obscure a product brochure or a product package wholly with cautionary information or this type.
For these and similar products, a folded up printed item advantageously is packaged and distributed together with the products and/or is affixed as some sort of addendum to promotional pieces. In the case of promotional pieces (e.g., mailings, magazine pages, handouts), the promotional piece may typically be a brightly printed glossy advertisement with pictures and logos. The informational material may typically be a black-and-white printed portion with small font size, either placed in an inner part of the advertisement (e.g., at the end) or contained in one or more separate sheets that are included. One technique is adhesively to attach envelope-like packages to the promotional pieces, the packages containing the warning sheet as a folded insert. The user tears open the envelope to obtain access to the insert.
Apart from inserts in envelopes affixed to printed promotional sheets and mailings, a similar supplemental item can be affixed to products or their packages, such as consumer products. Inserts are apt for product packages for the same reasons as above, namely to provide printed information that cannot advantageously be printed on the product or the container for the product.
Pharmaceutical products that are sold over the counter generally have some associated warnings and often are sold as vials or other containers packaged in boxes together with patient information inserts in the form of folded paper printed sheets. Frequently, such an information sheet or brochure is discarded with the box when the container is removed from the box. As a result, if a need for detailed information arises later, the printed sheets are no longer available.
Several ways are known to attach a detailed information sheet or leaflet as described, to a product container. The attachment could be more or less permanent, depending on expectations for how it will be used. Once the information sheet or leaflet is detached, and assuming there is no outer container or box, it is likely that the information sheet will be permanently separated from the product and lost.
Some similar problems are confronted with respect to product information sheets that are used with advertising brochures. Such brochures are used as handouts, mailings and the like. They are advantageously composed and printed in bright and attractive colors. They are advantageously associated with detailed information sheets or leaflets in small print, containing warnings that are perhaps necessary but that detract from the appearance of the brochure. U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,121 discloses a brochure with a removably attached product information patch for containing such an information sheet or leaflet. The product information patch consists of a base label that has adhesive applied over its surface facing the brochure, whereby the base label is permanently affixed to the brochure. A small-print folded product information sheet is contained between this base label and an over-laminated cover sheet. The folded product information sheet is spaced inwardly from the outer edges of the base label. The over-laminated sheet is secured to the base label over the product information sheet and adheres to the base label between the outer edges of the base label and the product information sheet.
The foregoing structure forms a closed envelope containing the product information sheet, affixed flat on the surface of the brochure. (Presumably it could likewise be affixed on the surface of a product or product package.) The over-laminate sheet can have perforations on opposite sides of the product information sheet. To obtain access to the product information sheet, the user tears the over-laminate apart at the perforations and extracts the product information sheet, leaving the base layer and any undetached portions of the over-laminate attached to the primary substrate, in this case a promotional brochure. The base layer typically remains attached to the substrate, as does at least the peripheral part of the over-laminate, after the product information sheet has been extracted. Separation of the over-laminate at the perforations generally removes any structure that could hold the product information sheet to the base label, so the envelope is only useful until the product information sheet is first removed. Normally that is sufficient for a product information sheet with a promotional brochure because after review of the brochure, and optionally also the product information sheet, the brochure and information sheet are both usually discarded.
It may seem complicated to have a base layer, a product information sheet and a perforated over-laminate attached to the brochure or other substrate, when one might simply glue an edge of the product information sheet to the product. However, there are some structural advantages to having the folded information sheet captured in a flat package. In addition to preventing the information sheet from unfolding inadvertently, a continuous web of such flat packages can be made and the roll can be handled substantially the same as a roll of mailing labels. The flat packages can be fed from the roll onto the brochures, such that an adhesive bearing side of each package is placed against and adheres to the surface of an associated brochure.
Each flat package in U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,121, as described above, has two distinct sheets affixed together from opposite faces of the product information sheet. It is also possible to use one integral sheet in a similar manner, except to fold the integral sheet to form one of the edges of the flat package. That structure could potentially avoid the need for a glue joint at the fold, but without any adhesive would need some functionally similar attention (e.g., hot rolling along the edge) to form a crisp flat fold.
More complicated envelopes are also known, wherein there are additional web layers, glue joints that extend part way across the area of contact between web layers, joints that are intended to capture just an extreme edge of a product information sheet and so forth. However it would be advantageous if product of this type could be improved, potentially even to simplify them, without contributing to the complexity of their structure and use.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,587,222 discloses an exemplary label assembly that includes a removable multi-ply insert and is likewise complex. The assembly includes a label that has adhesive applied to one side, and a removable multi-ply insert attached to the label by at least one fastening strip. The fastening strip may be permanently secured to the label at an end, and secured to the label by a peelable adhesive at the other end. A multi-ply insert of this type might be reattached to the label, although with continued removal and reinsertion, the structural parts and adhesive relations could weaken.
There is a need for new and improved labels and methods for labeling of products whereby a removable item such as a folded product information sheet can be affixed to a product such as an advertising brochure, can capture and hold the removable item securely but permit it to be accessed readily without substantial damage to the underlying substrate, and that can be manufactured without excessive cost. The present invention is directed to these and other important ends.
These needs are solved according to an inventive concept by providing a way to apply an over-laminate sheet directly to the underlying substrate in a way that facilitates handling of the over-laminate sheet as a label, does not glue or at most only incidentally tacks the removable item, such as a folded product information sheet, to the substrate, and facilitates access to the inserted item by separating the over-laminate, without damaging the substrate, for example, due to pulling apart adhesively affixed layers.
In one aspect, the invention provides an insert label assembly having a substrate, an insert, and a substantially transparent oversheet. The oversheet is preferably but not necessarily rectangular, and has spaced edges straddling the insert. The insert is disposed between the substrate and the oversheet, and the oversheet is affixed to the substrate at least at two of the spaced edges.
The insert may be removable from between the substrate and the oversheet while the oversheet remains intact and/or affixed to the substrate. Alternatively the oversheet can be made to tear away. The insert can be a leaflet bearing text or images, which is apt for containing supplemental product information, such as warnings and detailed instructions for medicinal products, etc. In other embodiments, the insert can be a product or a device such as, for example, a sample of a consumer product contained in a packet and affixed to the assembly between the oversheet and the substrate.
In an embodiment wherein the oversheet is more or less rectangular in shape, namely having two pairs of opposing mutually perpendicular edges, the oversheet can be affixed to the substrate exclusively at one pair of the opposing edges, leaving one or both of the perpendicular pair edges unattached so as to form a pocket with one access edge or a banded-over retaining structure with two edges open. The oversheet can be an arbitrary shape, for example complementary with an arbitrarily shaped product, with the attached edges defining a whole or partial enclosure, a curve such as a U-shape with an open top edge and a closed U-shaped bottom edge, etc.
Conveniently, the oversheet is substantially rectangular in shape, and can have rounded corners. The oversheet has a pair of opposing side edges, a top edge, and a bottom edge, and is affixed to the substrate at the pair of opposing side edges. To improve the likelihood of retention of the insert, the oversheet can also be attached at the bottom edge. The top edge is not attached to the substrate, thereby providing an open-ended pocket.
To improve retention of the insert, a relatively light adhesive material can additionally be placed between the insert and the substrate or between the insert and the oversheet, or both. This tacking adhesive is limited in coverage area and adhesion force (tackiness) so that the insert is removably adhered to the substrate by the adhesive material, and there is little or no visible damage to the insert or to the substrate when the insert is removed.
A number of specific arrangements are possible wherein the insert is more or less securely adhered. Generally, design choices that improve the security of retention increase the need to tear the oversheet when removing the insert. This can be facilitated by perforating the oversheet in one or more defined areas such as spaced lines along opposite edge strips of the oversheet that are adhered to the substrate. The perforations are disposed between the adhered edge strips and a central area that is not adhered or provided with an active adhesive layer.
Another aspect of the invention is a method for manufacturing an insert label assembly, whereby the oversheet can be handled much like a mailing label, but when applied forms a partial pocket for neatly retaining a folded paper insert or the like. A substrate is provided, to which the insert will be affixed, and in a preferred finishing line application, a succession of substrates are fed along a conveyor line. A supply of inserts is likewise provided, for example in a feed magazine. Each insert has a back surface, a front surface, and at least three edges. In a preferred arrangement the insert is a folded paper information sheet, but other sorts of inserts such as product samples are also possible and useful.
The substrates are fed along a conveying path passing a feed outlet from the magazine, and each receives an insert from the magazine. One or more of the inserts are deposited directly against the substrate from one or more magazines, such that a back surface of the insert contacts the substrate. After placing the insert on the substrate, an oversheet is likewise placed onto the substrate, at least partly over the insert. The oversheet has a top surface and a bottom surface, and a portion of the oversheet extends beyond at least two of the edges of the insert. Thus the bottom surface of the oversheet is applied over the insert and extends beyond the edges of the insert, or straddles the insert, at edges of the oversheet that contact the substrate directly.
In preferred embodiments, the oversheet has a first adhesive material on its bottom surface facing toward the substrate and the insert. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the oversheet is a transparent plastic sheet taken from a roll of labels whereby the successive oversheets for successive inserts are lifted from a web by a label feeder and rested on and straddling over the insert.
The first adhesive material on the underside of the oversheet may be a permanent adhesive. The insert optionally is removably affixed to the substrate by a second adhesive material that is less permanent or at least less tacky.
In another preferred embodiment, the first adhesive on the bottom surface of the oversheet is applied substantially over the entire bottom surface of the oversheet when preparing the oversheet on a label web. However, in selected areas of each individual oversheet label or patch, specifically in a central area spaced from the edges, the first adhesive on the bottom surface of the oversheet is deactivated or xe2x80x9ckilled.xe2x80x9d More particularly, the deactivated area can be chemically treated or coated so as to eliminate the tackiness of the adhesive, or to remove or to cover over the tacky adhesive, in a defined area to be disposed over the insert.
These and other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art in view of the ensuing disclosure, the appended claims, and the drawings, wherein the same reference numbers have been used to identify corresponding items in the respective views. It should be appreciated, however, that in this description, a number of the terms employed to describe orientations or directions such as xe2x80x9ctopxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cbottomxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cupperxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9clower,xe2x80x9d etc., are used for only convenience in describing the embodiments shown in the drawings being discussed. These terms are not intended to limit the invention to a particular orientation, or unless otherwise apparent, to exclude arrangements, including those having additional elements above a defined top or below a defined bottom, etc.